Translation from original in Spanish:

June 24, 2005, ECOSOC, UN, NY

With your consent, Mister or Miss President.

Ladies and Gentlemen representing the “Estados Parte.”

Representatives of civil society and the industry sector.

Friends:

I am Teressa Ulloa Ziáurriz, Regional Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Children for Latin America and the Caribbean.  I am proud to appear before you in order to bring the voices of the organizations and the national and international networks that pushed for my nomination.  I come to share our concerns and our proposals for half of the world’s population.

We, the women and girls of the world, fear war and all the violence that warlike acts bring against us: rape; sexual violence; displacement; death; hunger; the abuse of power used to humiliate the defeated, their mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters.  The sexual abuses and prostitution that belligerent forces, regular troops, and even peace units impose.  We want peace above economic and political interests, above the survival of the fittest, of petty and messianic interests.  We want the attention of the rule of international rights, human rights and laws.

We, the women and girls of the world, fear gender discrimination, a discrimination which kills thousands of girls before being born, or which condemns those who are born to a lack of opportunities, violence, exploitation, malnutrition, marginalization, inequality, and traditional practices harmful to their bodies and their human dignity. 

We, the women and girls in developing countries, fear poverty and the states have given such little attention and have made such few efforts on this topic that today the feminization of poverty is rising and threatens the world.

We, the women and girls of the world, fear gender violence, a violence which is exercised just as much in the public sphere as in the private sphere and continues to be a pending subject.  Women and girls continue suffering violence routinely in their homes were they should be guaranteed the right to life, integrity, and personal security.  Women are killed in Mexico and Latin America, a clear example are the “feminicidios” in the city of Juárez which have spanned across the county and the region for more than ten years without anyone doing anything to stop them.  It is impossible to build collective security if the personal security of women and girls is not guaranteed.  As long as the force and power are the prevalent norms in homes it will be impossible to build a world in which democracy will prevail.

We also fear gender equality politics in the member States and multilateral organizations when these do not reflected in the “Declaración del Milenio” [Millenium Declaration] or in the “Informe del Secretario General” [Secretary General’s Report], or in all of the politics and actions, all of the concerns and proposals, especially when the organizations that protect and promote the rights of women and girls have faced minimum infrastructure and funds.  We propose that actions be taken to reverse this situation with the participation of civil society in the most integral and effective way.  We have the right to be a priority in international cooperation, in the struggle for development and against poverty, in natural disasters, in education, in health, in the protection of human rights, as well as in topics of national security, in war, in peace, in the fight against terrorism, and in the fight against organized delinquency.  We propose a balance of gender in the “Consejo de Seguridad” [Security Counsel].

There are three booming illegal industries:  the trafficking of drugs, of arms, and the global industry of sex—prostitution in particular—which not only promote violence against women and girls, but is violence against them.  We fear consumers of bodies who through the demand for prostitution represent the economic incentive  for human traffickers with the intent of sexual exploitation, are the perpetrators of another form of violence against women, in the same was that the rapists, the batterers, and traffickers, they should also be submitted to the rule of law. 

Any law or political agenda that legitimizes prostitution as work, and therefore as a result facilitates the expansion of the industry’s business, puts women and girls in great danger.  This is not simple about the phenomenon of migration or tourism, it is a way of perpetuating stereotypes in which the bodies of women and girls are for the sexual pleasure of men, they are treated like consumer goods that can be bought, sold, or rented.  We propose that this not be tolerated and that it be considered a crime of humanity against collective security, but, at the same time, a life free from violence and all the social, economic, and culture rights should be guaranteed to women and children because their lives and bodies are not consumer goods.

Thank you very much.

Presented at Side Event of

 The Informal Interactive Hearings Of The General Assembly

With Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society Organizations And

The Private Sector, UN,  June 23, 24 2005

The Demand and the Stereotypes against Women at the Millennium+5 Declaration and Objectives.

MSc. Teresa Columba Ulloa Ziáurriz[1]

In reviewing the Millennium Declaration and Objectives, we should mention that women and girls are not free from violence, from war, from discrimination, from poverty.  We should also mention that women and girls are not free from fear for social exclusion, for the lack of opportunities, from the stereotypes that perpetuate the submission and inferiority of women in the public and private spheres.  We should mention that these issues are not properly dealt with in the Millennium Declaration and we should stress that prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation is not properly highlighted.  We consider the global sexual industry as an activity of organized crime that puts in danger all the women and girls of the developing world who suffer from poverty and extreme poverty.

It is not an issue dealing only with smuggling, or migration, or tourism.  The trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation is a major problem that affects women and children at the global level as a consequence of underdevelopment, lack of opportunities, social exclusion, economic structures and patriarchal structures and attitudes.  Trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children for sexual purposes, such as prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, servitude, sexual slavery, etc., are grave violations of human rights and fundamental liberties the victims’. These violations treat victims as commodities or consumption articles that can be sold, bought, or rented. These violations perpetuate patriarchal stereotypes of oppression and violence against women and children by normalizing as socially acceptable the power and privilege of  men  to identify the body of women and children as objects for their sexual pleasure.  These practices perpetuate the stereotype that equates women to sexual objects for men’s pleasure, rather than as autonomous persons with inherent dignity and human rights..

Around the world, four million women and two million children are recruited every year for the sex industry.  This industry is generating profits of more than 7 thousand million dollars each year, more than drug and arms trafficking.  

In Latin America, commercial sexual exploitation exists in streets, bars, diners, table dance clubs, massage parlors, saunas, run-down and sophisticated brothels, and through escort services and call girls. It should be noted that such venues for sexual exploitation are used by mainstream corporations, political bodies and military institutions. The demand varies among the different services offered and ranges from teenage boys to adult men, from those that make a living one day at a time to men with many economic possibilities, with varying degrees of education. 

According to studies undertaken in different countries, the most common recruitment techniques can include abduction, pressure from parents, arrangements between parents and traffickers who may be part of organized crime, deceit, the offer of better life and working conditions, addictions, domestic violence, sexual abuse, illegal adoption, seduction, and marriage previous to the victim’s exploitation.  Children are oftentimes transported to work sites far from their places of origin.  Victims are also exploited by virtue of abusing their vulnerabilities.  In other words, it is not only force, deception, abduction, etc. that traffickers use but they prey on women’s poverty, past sexual abuse, and other vulnerable situations.

Traffickers have different ways of operating.  They commonly deceive victims by offering them better life conditions in other countries or in urban centers within the same country.  Survivors often testify that traffickers retain their travel documents during transport or afterwards and, sometimes, resell them their own travel documents at exorbitant prices—a maneuver that leaves women and children in a defenseless and vulnerable position, especially if they have not entered the country legally.

In some cases, victims are kept as prisoners in brothels and appointment houses and their confinement is reinforced with barred windows, door locks, and guards.  Exploiters also exercise control by creating situations of dependency, fear and indebtedness of the victim.

Likewise, exploiters resort to physical aggression and violence to initiate women and children into the sex market industry, though in the case of virgin girls and teenage girls, the price for the first penetration increases considerably.

As in every market economy, in Mexico and in Latin America the economy is based on the law of supply and demand.  That is why we can affirm that if the demand was not on the rise, the supply would not be increasing or diversifying.  But, in addition, in my country, like in many other Latin American countries, there are no public policies directed at abating the demand side of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking.  Until the demand is targeted, the supply will continue.

The majority of Latin American countries punish victims. Legal measures against the demand or customers, who are the ones that guarantee and diversify the supply, has never been implemented.  For example, as the demand diversifies pornography is produced with children or babies less than a year old.  That is why we need to guarantee mechanisms that ensure the social, economic, and cultural rights of children and women and that punish the demand, including those that recruit, film, transport, house, etc. as well as those that buy or consume prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and trafficking in women and girls, because consumption is a form of perpetrating violence against women, and perpetrators should be accountable before the law as the same as a rapists, a perpetrator or a trafficker.  Therefore we propose that trafficking in persons for sexual purposes be considered a menace against collective security and a crime against humanity and we proposed as well that any law or policy that recognizes prostitution as a work, should be considered a policy against humanity, systematic and generalized,  just as genocide, with the consent of the State and therefore the governors should also be accountable.

Another big issue of concern is the roll the press and massive media has been playing in the promotion and advertising of the sex industry.  Some newspapers in some countries, had started to reject publishing advertisements for sexual services, but a big number of news papers still do it, therefore we would like to propose a special campaign to invite the newspapers to produce their own ethic code to prevent facilitating the expansion and growing of the global sex industry. It should be noted that "Escort Ads" are a commonly accepted manner in which mainstream media profit off violence against women.

We believe that the international community will not be able to build collective security, law enforcement, democracy, peace, sustainable development, or poverty eradication, if violence against women is not eradicated in our planet. We believe that the Millennium Development Goals have no hope of succeeding unless violence against women is not eradicated in our planet. The global sex industry, mainly prostitution and trafficking for sexual purposes, is a form of violence against women and girls and a form of modern day slavery.

Thank you

New York, NY., June 2005.